So since only one person here really knows anyone at my work, and I know Dagg is a fucking vault....

I got the job I was REALLY hoping for. I'm fucking SO STOKED.

Now to deal with the next 5 weeks before I'm released from training to the new venture.

Fucking awesome man. I am so happy for you!

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All right, we are going to use a fan brush here and uh why don't you take some hunter green and we are going to put a happy little bush right down over here in the corner there and that'll just be our little secret and if you tell anyone that that bush is there I will come to your house and I will cut you.

Neat! I was in Chicago like a week or two ago but because of time constraints/rest of my family not caring about arboretums/it was cold out, we went to the Museum of Science and Industry instead (also the food court there actually had rather good food which is weird for museums I mean seriously Smithsonian's food is gross).

The local conservatory here does stuff like that sometimes though I'm never there at night 'cause it's kind of bordering a bad part of town. Also I know the zoo has lights at Christmas but there's nothing to see there after dark so we've learned to avoid those :T

@Going to the bank:

Bank was closed. Got quarters from Kroger instead. Got lunch at Target. Went to Gamestop but they didn't have anything interesting.

@Some thoughts on gaming:

1. I saw some cracked.com article talking about how the Game Industry's about to crash, and one of the points they made was about how, on Metacritic, the professional reviews for AAA games tend to be a lot higher than the user reviews. Their interpretation was that professional reviewers were corporate shills who give games good reviews so they can have their review featured on the box.

My interpretation is that the people writing Metacritic user reviews are easily-offended dumbasses that can't form a coherent opinion about anything. If you actually read the user reviews I'm pretty sure I'm right.

2. I also feel like the pricing for iPod/Android games is making gamers expect way lower prices for anything arcade/not super complex/not super long. Which on the flipside means that I think there are market pressures to put a lot of additional stuff in a game if you want to sell it for more than like two dollars.

Except I don't think adding more stuff to a game is necessarily a good thing because a lot of times it just results in bloat and, well, /stuff/ that's just THERE.

Fallout 2 was like that for me -- and I'm only bringing that up 'cause the GOG promotion -- but Fallout 1 was perfectly succinct and didn't waste any time, and yeah it was super short but I never got bored of it. Fallout 2 had a lot more stuff but it felt time wastey and pointless.

Alternatively, would Layer Section have been a better game if it was twice as long as it already is? God no -- 25-40 minute is about the ideal length for a shmup, and anything longer than that can get REALLY stressful. But I know a lot of modern gamer are going to see that it's just under 30 minutes long, only has like 6 levels, and wonder why they should shell out more than two bucks for it*.

3. Taking these two points together? Mass Effect 3 is one of the games that Cracked mentioned -- it got good professional reviews on Metacritic, but was panned by users because of the ending. AFAIK ME3 has a lot of content and is rather long, possibly because of market pressure to be really long and have a lot of content (idk reviewers like that at least). The ending sequence in ME3 is like, what, ten minutes long?

I have no idea if ME3 is good or not. I've never played it. But I've never heard anyone talk about the /rest/ of the game. Just the ending.

So, you know, you have market pressure to make really huge games, but the gaming community is just going to end up basing their opinion on whether the last ten minutes of the game presents an ending that matches their personal headcanon?

Does anyone else see a problem with this?

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o/` I do not feel joy o/`o/` I do not dream o/`o/` I only stare at the door and smoke o/`

Sorry bro but any time you meet someone on the internet you know there's an 80% chance they just wanna steal ya organs.

... I should find cheaper restaurants for the next time I'm there with family. I think our /family dining experiences/ all broke the 100$ mark. Personally I'm content with food court falafel and steamed buns but uh GUESS THAT'S JUST ME.

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o/` I do not feel joy o/`o/` I do not dream o/`o/` I only stare at the door and smoke o/`

Went to see Cirque Du Soleil Varekai. This is my 4th show and second favorite. The fearlessness and the strength those performers have are awe inspiring. I can't even believe they did some of those things on stage. It can't help but make you want to workout.

Went to see Cirque Du Soleil ...this is my 4th show and second favorite.

I actually don't think I could ever rank them... I'd be horrible at it, I'm usually too floored by everything and anything and in full-consciousness of the fact I couldn't do the things they do even if I changed my life's calling.

I've only seen one show though, but I've made it a fact of my life that i'll see another.

And yeah, too much to respond to, but I love all the good news flooding in with other members!

1. I saw some cracked.com article talking about how the Game Industry's about to crash, and one of the points they made was about how, on Metacritic, the professional reviews for AAA games tend to be a lot higher than the user reviews. Their interpretation was that professional reviewers were corporate shills who give games good reviews so they can have their review featured on the box.

My interpretation is that the people writing Metacritic user reviews are easily-offended dumbasses that can't form a coherent opinion about anything. If you actually read the user reviews I'm pretty sure I'm right.

I read that one too. It was written by a developer and I understand why he feels we game journalists are the bad guys, but in the end we're also underpaid and overworked, just like the common developer.

Going to some corporate office to preview a game is not exactly fun, unless it happens to be that one game you've been dreaming about for years. That is extremely rare though. Usually trips are time consuming and tiring. You're constantly being watched and I've mentioned it before, you may even have to go through some security to use the bathroom. Fun, fun, fun... Even if they show us the best parts, it not the best way to experience them.

As for the ads. Yes, ads are the pillars of publications and yes, it's game companies that advertise in game magazines. But that's nothing new. It's been like that since game magazines were a thing. And it's not something reviewers actually deal with. We get an assigment, turn it in and move on to the next. One editor-in-chief would just send me semi-cryptic messages like: "FFCC:EoT, 1P, Thursday?" I don't know what ads are in a magazine until I open it and see them for myself.

Funny story, I once gave some game titled From the Abyss a pretty bad review. I think I compared it to watching paint dry and concluded the whole paint thing would be more entertaining. It was a half-page article. When I opened up the magazine I saw a big one page ad for it right next to the review. My editor was horrified. Not because of the bad score, but because the ad shouldn't have been placed next to the review. We lost that advertisor and that wouldn't have happened if the ad had been place elsewhere in the mag. The editor-in-chief assured me I did the right thing and it was a fuck up on their side.

Funny story, I once gave some game titled From the Abyss a pretty bad review. I think I compared it to watching paint dry and concluded the whole paint thing would be more entertaining. It was a half-page article. When I opened up the magazine I saw a big one page ad for it right next to the review. My editor was horrified. Not because of the bad score, but because the ad shouldn't have been placed next to the review. We lost that advertisor and that wouldn't have happened if the ad had been place elsewhere in the mag. The editor-in-chief assured me I did the right thing and it was a fuck up on their side.

That is hilarious and not uncommon these days, at least online. Google robots have no sensitivity about situations.

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All right, we are going to use a fan brush here and uh why don't you take some hunter green and we are going to put a happy little bush right down over here in the corner there and that'll just be our little secret and if you tell anyone that that bush is there I will come to your house and I will cut you.

The other thing with professional reviews -- and I think you mentioned this in that Wonderful 101 post -- is that you're being forced to play games under a time limit and that WILL effect how you respond to them. Also I'd assume that the professionalism means you get less emotionally involved and less prone to, uh, the sort of goofy fan rants that plague the metacritic user reviews?

Also another thing that's tangentially related to my first post -- I saw some review talking about how the Vita and 3DS had become deprecated thanks to the popularity of touch-enabled Smartphones and internally I'm thinking that's not really accurate, that they're not attracting the same kind of games, and even if they are I'm not seeing Ys Seven and A Link Between Worlds getting iOS ports any time ever.

I'm also sort of annoyed about the naysaying wrt the current gen consoles not having a lot of games. Gaming platforms take like two or three years to start getting an established software base now. This isn't new. Why are people still being surprised by this?

Yeah I left that show a little underwhelmed too. I like the shows that have a story.

It wasn't so much the lack of story -- in general I wouldn't say Cirque is that story-focused? -- but more that I don't think the theme ever got beyond THIS IS REALLY ASIAN without any sort of broader implications of connectedness between scenes or characters or whatever.

Also the clowns were /really/ fucking dumb in that one.

You know, it's funny -- I saw Dralion in Columbus but I have no idea WHERE. I want to say it was downtown somewhere -- possibly out by COSI?

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o/` I do not feel joy o/`o/` I do not dream o/`o/` I only stare at the door and smoke o/`

Well Varekai's story isn't strong. I guess I should say it had characters with distinct personalities that tied the show together. I agree that Dralion seemed to have random performances on stage with no strong ties throughout.

Well Varekai's story isn't strong. I guess I should say it had characters with distinct personalities that tied the show together. I agree that Dralion seemed to have random performances on stage with no strong ties throughout.

Given I just lost my "Cirque-Virginity" last year, it's hard to judge, but man I'd love to see more now. The one I saw was Totem. I did *WATCH* "O" back in high school (our drama teacher was a big fan).

I just shovelled the fuck out of the driveway. On my own, and my dad gave my brother the bigger shovel.It was only "powder" snow, so it wasn't heavy.... till the fucking end where the plow came by and rolled the slush and snow together. That on its own at the end was the longest and hardest to clean up.

I think I've caught some illness. I'm coughing a lot. I'm making homemade chicken soup to help heal and stuff. :)